


Lets have dinner

by Juniper_Berry



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach, first meeting after the fall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juniper_Berry/pseuds/Juniper_Berry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John meet after the fall, and resolve their relationship as they go after Sebastian Moran. based on ACD books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The text

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not reviewed by anyone, and it has my take on what happened after the fall, but I have kept it fairly vague.

John was sitting alone in his new flat when it happened; fully, utterly and despairingly alone. The kind of alone that can only happen at two in the morning, when you don’t have to smile, and shuffle through life being brave and normal and pretending that you are somehow coping with the insufferable reality that your best friend is… No. Not thinking about that. Best not to think at all.

  
John reached for his tumbler, half-filled with amber gold, and no god damn it, his hand was not shaking. He did not miss the war, he did not miss the cases and he does not need…

  
He took a quick gulp to drown out the thoughts, managing to not spill anything, despite the shaking…no…not going there, remember?

The quick chime of his mobile was enough to distract him from his thoughts.

  
“Who the bloody hell?”

_I'm not dead, let’s have dinner - SH_

  
John jumped up from the chair, dropping the glass and looking around wildly, and there he was. Standing in the doorway, scarf wrapped around his neck, leather gloves on his hands and wearing his trademark trench coat with the collar turned up.

  
John couldn’t speak, just stood there, staring, forgetting how to breathe, as one name reverberated through his head.

  
“I was thinking Chinese, I know a place not far from here, the fortune cookies are predictable, but the dim-sim is quite nice.”

  
And then John was moving, hurling himself towards him, not even sure himself whether he meant to hit him or hug him until he’s there. And oh yes, he wants to hit him, a viscous uppercut followed by a savage punch to the gut. Sherlock doesn’t fight back, doesn’t even try to defend himself as a roundhouse sends him sprawling to the floor.

  
“You bastard!” He screamed. “You knew, you knew what it would do, to Mrs Hudson, and to me.” He took a shuddering breath, “there were people Sherlock, good people, and you think you can come back into our… back into my life, as if nothing has happened.”

  
Sherlock looked up at him from the floor, clothing slightly disarrayed and held out a hand, and just like that, without thinking, John was hauling him up into a tight embrace that threatened to last long enough to start tongues wagging all over again, if there were anyone there to see. Long enough to have John make one of his grumbling half protests that he was not gay, or at least, he would have, if he were capable of anything other than holding his best friend tight and not letting go. In the end it was Sherlock who pulled away with a twisted half smile and a throw-away remark.

  
“Yes, I’m very pleased to see you too, but really John it can’t have been that much of a surprise.”

  
“It can’t have been…? Sherlock, for once, put yourself in my shoes. How would you have felt, what would you have done if it had been me you saw jump? Me you saw…”

  
“Preposterous John, it wouldn’t have fooled me for a second. Being directed to one spot and not allowed to come any closer, not being able to see the body land, the suspicious amount of people on hand all available to rush in and take the body away, the cyclist there to conveniently run interference, and the all-important truck disappearing around the corner, no really, I’m almost surprised it worked at all. But then I didn’t have a lot of time to plan it, I was disturbingly slow to figure out what was at stake”

  
“You…” John took a deep breath to centre himself before continuing. “I saw your body, I checked your pulse, you were dead.”

  
“No. No and No.”

  
“What?”

  
Sherlock let out an exasperated huff, “No you didn’t see my body, no you didn’t check my pulse and quite clearly, no, I wasn’t dead.”

  
“I was there, remember?”

  
“Yes, and I was disappearing around the corner in a truck, do try to keep up.” Sherlock snapped.

  
John gave a sudden bark of laughter, “My god. Remind me again, why have I missed you so much?”

  
Sherlock gave his sweet smile, “Because without me, my dear John, life is so drably ordinary, I really don’t know how you could bear this dull life for seven months, and I simply could not allow you to suffer through it any longer.”

  
“Well, that’s just brilliant. Why did you leave it so long? How are you going to clear your name? And when do we tell Mrs Hudson?”

  
“All in good time. For now, we have a case.” Sherlock broke out into a manic grin, “the game, John, is back on.”


	2. Out of Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock coming to terms with the return. John thinks he won't be able to forgive Sherlock, or follow him to his next case. Sherlock is pretty sure he can persuade him.

John looked at Sherlock incredulously and wondered if it had finally happened, the psychic break, the (rather alarmingly rapid really) decent into madness that he has been staving off since the fall.

He’d imagined Sherlock’s return a thousand times. Was this just another half-dream, one he would awake from with a start just to realise that his world was still bleak and hallow and that he was still so _bloody_ alone?

Sherlock gave a huff of annoyance, “No John, I assure you I am quite real, and as my rapidly swelling jaw can attest to, very much in the flesh.”

John startled and focused on Sherlock, taking all of him in; clothes slightly disarrayed, breathing a little heavier than normal, (breathing, yes, well that’s an improvement on, well, the alternative) bruises already developing on check and jaw. John’s training took over, blessedly freeing him from having to think about any of this.

“Yes, ahem, yes, alright.” John straightened his stance and gave a quick decisive nod. “OK.” He walked to the kitchen and rummaged in the freezer, coming out with a packet of frozen peas.

He walked into Sherlock’s personal space, closer than he needed to, and God, why should he feel this content just from being close, from reaching up and placing the peas against Sherlock’s jaw, from steadying himself with a tight grip on Sherlock’s shoulder, holding him in place when he instinctively pulled back from the icy cold.

“Sherlock, for god’s sake hold still, we need to keep this on to help with the swelling.”

Sherlock glared down at his friend, but stopped trying to pull away, letting John hold the peas in place, letting him hold _Sherlock_ in place. He swept his eyes down and up, taking in every part of John, and taking him apart in the process.

They stood in silence, for minutes or hours. John focused on the points where his body touched Sherlock; hand on shoulder, other still holding the peas against his jaw, torsos occasionally brushing together on an exhale, legs and feet, sometimes meeting before shuffling away. Sherlock’s body, angular and sharp, and breathing - _yes, still breathing, well done, apparently not going to move away from that point any time soon_.

Finally, the peas were no longer frozen, or even particularly cold. Sherlock stepped back, and John let him, moving to the kitchen to throw the peas in the sink before turning around.

Sherlock was pacing in the small room with frantic energy.

“We need to go, John.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s someone we have to catch.”

“No Sherlock. Why are you here? Why now? Why do you need me?”

“Because this is the last one, and I need you to be there for the end.”

Sherlock gave a small smile, trying to coax a response out of John, and when that failed he scraped a frustrated hand through his curls.

“Argh, really John isn’t it obvious? It’s after two in the morning; clearly I had a good reason to do what I did, I arrive after months of no contact, letting you assume that I’m dead, although I really did think you might have been able to figure out by now that I wasn’t…”

“Sherlock!” John growled.

“Yes, right. I’m here because it’s time, everything I’ve been working towards is about to be over with one final brilliant plan, and it wouldn’t be the same without you there beside me.”

“You need your audience then; someone to stroke your gigantic ego and tell you how clever you’ve been.” John took a steadying breath, leaning back against the kitchen counter, eyes furious, breath starting to stutter. “Well you’ll just have to find someone else. Because I don’t want to be your vapid fan. I don’t want to stand beside you, admiring your stupid plan.”

John took a deep breath, looking Sherlock in the eyes unflinchingly, “ **You. Left. Me!** " He shouted.

"There is nothing, _nothing_ that could persuade me to stand by you, admiring whatever it is you want me to witness, because whatever grand ending you are about to reveal, it won’t be enough. Nothing could possibly be enough to make up for what you put me through.”

“I don’t need an audience, John. I need you.”

“Tough. And stop giving me that look.”

“What look?” Sherlock asked.

“The, _‘John, we both know what this is really about, and we both know how this will end, so why don’t we just skip this and get to the bit where you follow me blindly’_ look.”

“Oh.” Said Sherlock smirking slightly, “that look.”

Sherlock gave an exaggerated sigh, before resignedly taking off his gloves.

“What are you doing?” John asked, as Sherlock tossed his gloves on the table, and unwound his scarf to join them.

“Well clearly we can’t just skip this, so I may as well get comfortable.” Sherlock replied as he unbuttoned his coat and made a gesture to the sofa with his head. “Take a seat John.”

John hesitated, having an internal debate, before taking a seat. Because, despite everything he has said, and all the things he hasn’t, he feels confused, angry, no scrap that, furious, joyous and more alive than he has since the day he saw his best friend jump, and dammit that was just, maybe, enough.

Once John was settled on the sofa, and it was clear that he had resigned himself to at least stay quiet and listen to what Sherlock had to say, Sherlock paced in front of him, falling into full lecture mode.

“Moriarty did his job well, almost too well. It wasn’t enough that he destroy me professionally. He needed to burn the heart out of me. I once thought I didn’t have a heart to burn, but it turns out I was wrong. He left me IOUs, three of them, one for Mrs Hudson, one for Lestrade, and one for you, and each IOU came with an assassin.”

John shifted forward on the sofa, but stayed silent, focusing intently on Sherlock’s words.

“He gave me an ultimatum on the roof. Either I jumped, or you died, the three people who had somehow managed to carve a spot in _the great Sherlock Holmes’s_ heart. Fortunately, he wasn’t as brilliant as he thought. He didn’t allow for Molly, and he underestimated what I was willing to do to protect the people I… well, you know what I mean.”

“Sentiment?”

“Yes. Exactly. Sentiment.”

“So you jumped.”

“Yes.”

“To save us?” John asked.

“Yes. I didn’t care about my reputation, of what people thought of me. Letting them all think I was a fraud meant nothing. But if I hadn’t given Moriarty his fall, I would have lost something, infinitely more valuable.”

“You know I was right about you.” John said.

“In what way?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Sherlock smiled, his, _oh, god yes, he can still surprise me,_ smile. And John found himself echoing him, because this, _this_ , is what he has been craving for so long, and god help him; he needed this more than he needed his next breath.

“So, what happened, after…?” John asked.

“Molly helped certify that I was dead. Mycroft helped keep me that way. I went undercover to pull apart Moriarty’s web, strand by strand.”

“How’s your jaw feeling?”

“Sore, why do you ask?” Sherlock asked.

“Because I’m bloody tempted to hit you again,” John answered. “Why didn’t you take me with you?”

“Yes, brilliant John. We could have both jumped together’” Sherlock snarled. “Logistics aside, it wouldn’t have been very believable to have you commit suicide with me. We could have disappeared but Lestrade and Mrs Hudson would have been left to the assassins’ mercy. Do at least try to use your brain. This was the only way.”

John sprung up from the sofa, once again invading Sherlock’s space and tilted his face up until it was inches from Sherlock’s.

“No. You use your brain! You could have come to me, after the funeral. You could have come to me and I would have faked my own suicide and joined you wherever you led. Trust me; it would have been very believable. I don’t think there is a single person who would have been surprised to hear that I had taken my life after you… left.”

Sherlock didn’t back down. He kept staring down at John with arrogance and without apology, their breaths huffed against each other and neither man was willing to step away.

“I couldn’t take you with me John. Not down the path I chose,” Sherlock said.

“Why not?”

“When we were on the roof, Moriarty told me I was boring because I was on the side of the angels. Do you know what I told him?”

“What?” John clipped out, voice hoarse with supressed emotion.

“I told him I might be on the side of the angels, but he wasn’t to think, _not for one second_ , that I was one of them,” Sherlock snarled out. “I’m not one of the angels John, but you…” he brought both arms up to clasp John’s shoulders.

They were standing so close now it was practically an embrace.

“Don’t…” John warned, clenching his left fist.

Sherlock let his head tip down, touching his forehead to John’s, something dangerously close to desperation in his eyes as he looked into John’s. “You are one of the angels John and I could not take you where I had to go.”

“Sherlock…”

“No. John. You have _morals_ , and _decency_. You _care_ about people, even people you have never met. I had to do things that you wouldn’t have approved off. Necessary things.”

“I killed a man for you when we’d only just met. I would have followed you Sherlock.”

“I know. You would follow me into hell. Willingly. But I needed you to stay here. I needed you to stay with the angels.”

John cleared his throat, finally unclenching his left fist and bringing it up to rest hesitantly against Sherlock’s back. “And why is that Sherlock? Why did you need me here?”

“Because I needed you to be able to pull me back out of hell when I was done,” Sherlock replied.

John closed his eyes briefly, giving a half hum, before letting go and stepping back, dislodging Sherlock’s hands in the process. He straightened again, falling back on his military posture.

“Alright then,” he said decisively.

“Alright, what?” Sherlock asked suspiciously.

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To this case of yours,” John answered. “Do try to keep up Sherlock.”

Sherlock gave a delighted shout of laughter before scrambling back into his outer clothes and heading for the door.

“And Sherlock…” John said as they shut the door.

“Yes?”

“Next time, you will take me with you.”

“John…”

“No Sherlock. You have to trust me on this one; no hell you can lead me to could be worse than the one you left me in. If this happens again, you take me with you, or I won’t be here to pull you back at the end.”

Sherlock sent John an encompassing look, taking in everything that had happened to John since he had left.

“Yes. Next time I take you with me.”


	3. The empty penthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John follows Sherlock to a crime scene and it is almost like old times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not bet'd so any mistakes are mine :)

Sherlock hailed a taxi with his usual ease and they ended up in front of large apartment buildings that practically screamed money.  Despite the early hour there were still people on the streets, the smell of hot food wafted across, John was pretty sure he’d been to this area with Sherlock before.  They’d had Chinese.

There were also police cars and crime tape.

Donovan was the first person they encountered.  She was talking to a uniformed officer that John didn’t recognise as Sherlock and John made their way to the crime tape.

“Hello Freak.  I’d heard you’d added rising from the dead to your pile of tricks.”

“Donovan, so lovely to see you again,” Sherlock said with a faint smirk.

“Still with him John?  Didn’t I tell you he was bad news? I’m starting to think you’re a bit of a masochist.  Maybe you like having him walk all over you.”

“Careful Donovan.  Is that Anderson’s wife I hear calling?” Sherlock murmured as he ducked under the crime tape and held it up for John to follow.

Sally glared as she turned her back on him and started directing the uniformed officer.

“Come along John.”

John rolled his eyes and gave a resigned huff.  But he still followed Sherlock into the apartment building.

Sherlock used a swipe card to get the elevator to the penthouse floor.

“Where did you…?” John asked.

  
Sherlock gave him a quick wink, “I lifted it from Donovan’s pocket.”

  Lestrade greeted them at the door to the penthouse a joyful smile plastered across his face as he saw Sherlock.

“Christ, when Mycroft called me I almost believed it was some kind of a joke.  I’d hit you for what you put us through, but it looks like John’s already taken care of that.”

Lestrade gave a rueful shake of his head before pulling Sherlock in for a quick hug, with a couple of maybe-too-vigorous back pat’s thrown in before stepping back and acknowledging John with  a quick handshake.

“Right.  Body’s through there.  Just like old times isn’t it?”

John gave a quick nod, while thinking that no, it isn’t, but maybe it was getting there.

“Bloody Christ,” John said once he walked into the penthouse. “I bet you could fit my entire flat into one of the bathrooms.”

The apartment was huge; the main door opened into a reception area with two lounges and curved around to the kitchen and dining room and a passageway with several doors.  There was a spiral staircase leading up to a second floor. 

There were also wraparound floor to ceiling windows that opened onto a large deck, and the body of a man, slumped over an antique desk that was positioned to take advantage of the amazing view, what was left of his head was resting against an open laptop.

Sherlock flittered towards the body, snapping on disposable gloves as John struggled into blue overalls.  Once he was completely covered he went over to join Sherlock, who was having a heated argument with Anderson.  Lestrade sided with Sherlock and told Anderson to get out.

“Now _this_ is just like old times,” John said with a happy grin that was briefly echoed by Sherlock before he got back to studying the body.

“Professional, obviously, works in government, although his would be a moderately influential role, nothing approaching Mycroft’s _minor_ position.  This was his personal computer, and the reason he was killed can be found on the page he was looking at.  Obvious again.  Shot at long range through the head, must have been a very skilled sniper to manage this with one shot, but this wasn’t a hit.  The man knew his killer, and was a threat to his current identity.”

“Amazing, how do you…?”

Sherlock looked up with another quick grin, “I’ve missed you too John.  You have no idea.”

John cleared his throat and tried to get the inappropriately large grin off his face.

“Right, so if you two are quite done with the mutual admiration…” Greg said, with an equally inappropriate grin.

“Yes of course.”

Sherlock took a pen out of his pocket and tapped the laptop power button.  The screen was hard to read due to a significant amount of spatter and the remains of a head blocking the screen, but what they could see was a spread sheet with a column of names and next to the names column were two columns with the pound sign above them.  Each name had an amount in the thousands, either in the first column in red with a negative sign, or in the next column over in black.  The vast majority of the columns were in the black.

Sherlock hissed in a breath then stared out at the window before taking two long strides towards the door.

“There’s no bullet hole in the glass.”

“No. That one’s a bit of a puzzler to us.”

“John, do you mind looking at the body, tell us what you think happened?” Sherlock asked.

“Right.  Of course.” John got close to the man.  He’d seen many bullet wounds from his time in Afghanistan, many of them from long range sniper rifles.

“Defiantly a rifle shot, bullet went straight through, taking out a fair bit of the skull on the way out.  The man’s been dead for only three to four hours, rigor mortus is only just starting to set in, looks like he was facing the sniper at the time, based on where the bullet went in.”

“Yes, very good John. Lestrade, where’s the remote?”

“what?”

“The remote, look around, everything is controlled electronically by that control panel on the wall, lights, blinds, music, windows” Sherlock gestured to the wall by the main door to a touchscreen control panel.

“There’s no way they would have everything controlled by the push just that panel, they’d need a remote so they can relax in their bathtub while turning up the stereo.  So where is the remote?”

“I’m not sure.  We haven’t found one yet.”

“Who found the body?” Sherlock asked.

“His wife, she was out at some charity function, got home just after midnight. We’ve already questioned her and let her go; she has an alibi of hundreds of London’s elite.”

“And she went without her husband?”

“Apparently he had some sort of monthly card game at his club, refused to miss it.”

Sherlock got an arrested look on his face as he pivoted towards the DI.

“Say that again,” he demanded.

“The husband was playing cards at his club and refused to miss it?” Lestrade said slowly.

“Yes.  Of course.  Sebastian Moran was one of the people at his card table, he would have been the victim’s partner and he found out that Sebastian cheated and confronted him, then came back here to figure out how to pay back the winnings.  Sebastian shot him to keep his cheating a secret; he can’t afford to be blackballed from the exclusive clubs, too useful for his work.”

“Wait, you got that from a closed window and a card game?”

“No of course not.  I knew it was Sebastian because I’ve been following him since I faked my death; he’s the only man in London who could have made this shot at night with the amount of wind we’ve had tonight.  The window is shut but the remote isn’t here.  He must have been in the building before they left, he lifted it then in case he needed it, but he didn’t come back with the victim, not really his style to get up close with a kill, he’d prefer to shot from a difference.  There’s only one other building within the correct line of site and that is roughly 800 metres away, see it?  Obviously the remote isn’t meant to work at that distance, but it easily modified if you know how.  Look at how the body’s positioned.  He was starting to get up when the bullet entered him, fell back into the chair after he was shot and then slumped forward.  He must have started to stand when the window opened all on its own.

“OK, so how do we find him?” Lestrade asked.

“We don’t need to.  I haven’t exactly been subtle, he’s already found us.  Now all we have to do is make our way back to Baker Street and wait for him to shoot me.” Sherlock said smugly.


End file.
